The National Hockey League’s expansion draft is proving to be a land of opportunity for the Vancouver Canucks.

Earlier this year, the Canucks were cornered into making a Jannik Hansen trade, a deal that could rank among the team’s most shrewd rebuilding moves in the Trevor Linden era.

Now, they’ve “lost” Luca Sbisa, a defenceman the team’s management always liked far more than they should have.

With Sbisa moving to Las Vegas to join the new Golden Knights, the Canucks free up another $3.6 million in cap space, leaving them about $19.5 million under the cap, which should be enough — $18 million more than they will need — to find an acceptable replacement in free agency.

It also gives the Canucks an opportunity to re-imagine the blue-line. Not that long ago, it was plausible the Canucks could have had Erik Gudbranson, Nikita Tryamkin and Sbisa all in the same October lineup.

It would have meant a large-but-slow back end with a ridiculously clunky transition game, or the exact opposite of what everyone saw from the small, sleek, puck-moving defence the Nashville Predators rode all the way to the Stanley Cup Final.

With Sbisa and Tyramkin gone, and Gudbranson on an expiring deal that will take him to unrestricted free agency, the Canucks have a chance here at a defensive do-over. This time, they’d be wise to focus more on blue-liners who can efficiently move a puck and less on the increasingly outdated front-of-the-net road graders.

Sbisa, of course, was the key player the Canucks acquired in the Ryan Kesler trade. But Vancouver’s hopes three years ago that he’d transform into a rollicking top-four defenceman with a mean streak — after having already logged 266 less-than-mediocre NHL games — proved to be predictably fruitless.

Articulate, and thoughtful, Sbisa was great off the ice. Not so much on it.

His first year was bad. Some in the organization believed maybe it was because he spent most of it paired with Kevin Bieksa. But it never did get appreciably better for him.

At his best, Sbisa was physical and an adequate third-pairing blue-liner on a bad team. At his worst, there were grisly giveaways and a transition game so slow you could feel frantic, mad, then drowsy and finally sad watching him move pucks up ice.

This past season, he struggled more than usual in the second half when injuries piled up and his matchups toughened, a reality even the Canucks gave a nod to on his way out.

“I thought the first 65 games he was real consistent for us,” Vancouver GM Jim Benning said. “We miss him when he’s not on the penalty kill. The year before when he was hurt, our penalty killing wasn’t as good.

“He gave us a physical presence on the back end.”

But this past season, the Canucks finished 28th in penalty killing and Sbisa played every game. The year before, the Canucks were 17th and Sbisa only played half the season.

The shot metrics suggest it may not be entirely a fluke. This past year, opponents averaged 60.77 short-handed shots-on-net per hour with Sbisa on the ice. Only Bo Horvat was on the ice for a higher number of short-handed shots-per-hour against.

But penalty killing was one of Sbisa’s strengths, actually. At evens, it was more troubling.

In his three seasons, the Canucks controlled just 45.3 per cent of unblocked shot attempts with Sbisa on the ice. Only three skaters who logged at least 1,000 even-strength minutes, Michael Chaput, Matt Bartkowski and Alex Biega, were worse.

It’s not great company.

Sbisa’s departure also underscores the fact the Kesler deal is not aging well. The only remaining players you can tie to the Kesler trade tree are Gudbranson, Derek Dorsett and Brandon Sutter, none considered pillars of the rebuild.

Meanwhile, Kesler was really good this year, and a Selke finalist.

The cap space has the potential to be a big deal, especially if the Canucks can find a way to get a good asset, maybe a high draft pick, while using some of that space to take on a bad contract.

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